


keep the tide down

by cupcakeb



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Canon Compliant, Exes with Benefits, F/M, my essay submission for 'most depressingly realistic canon pairing on the show'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakeb/pseuds/cupcakeb
Summary: Lu doesn't mean to make a habit out of sleeping with her ex-boyfriend on her birthday, and yet she just keeps on doing it.
Relationships: Lucrecia "Lu" Montesinos Hendrich/Guzmán Nunier Osuna
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	keep the tide down

**Author's Note:**

> can we get a "hell yeah" for mutual toxicity and growing out of it together? No? Okay...

  
  
  
The first time it happens, she’s too overwhelmed to consider the implications of what she’s doing. It’s her birthday, but she told Carla she doesn’t want a party. She told her several times, actually. They’ve been speaking a lot more recently, and Lu kind of wishes it happened under different circumstances.  
  
All bets have been off for the past week. Lu isn’t in the right frame of mind to party, much less to enjoy herself. It feels too morbid, to celebrate turning eighteen the night before a funeral.  
  
Maybe she only ends up at his house because she wants to get away from it all. She doesn’t really know. She remembers the address, even though he only moved here last year. She spent one too many nights up in his room to forget.  
  
She’s had a few drinks — considering the circumstances, she thinks she’s allowed — and when she texts him as she gets out of the car in front of his place, she feels her heart beating a little too fast in her chest.  
  
He’s opening the door for her before she even has the opportunity to knock. It’s not late, and she can hear his parents talking in the living room, so she pulls him outside for a second.  
  
“Can we talk inside?”

Guzmán nods, glances at her lips once, and she walks past him. She still knows this house way better than she’d like. It’s pretty ironic that they’re back here.

Going to his bedroom is foolish, but it’s what she does. She doesn’t _really_ want to talk. He pushes the door closed behind him. She would’ve gone to the living room, but it’s just them up here, no nosy parents around to bother them.  
  
There’s a bottle of jack on his nightstand, the cap missing and half of it gone, and she shoots him a knowing look when he finds her glancing at it. So maybe they’re both not having the best night, then. They always did work best when one of them had hit rock bottom; some commiserating might be in order.  
  
She’ll probably forget how he looks at her then, his eyes brimming with something that resembles understanding. She keeps forgetting things lately, probably on purpose. Anyway.  
  
Lu isn’t here to exchange meaningful looks that neither of them will ever bother to decipher.  
  
“It’s my birthday,” she says quietly, almost coyly, and he shoots her that grin, the one she’s never been able to resist. If she’s being honest, that stupid fucking grin is probably why she ended up here tonight. It’s more effective than alcohol and offers more longevity than comfort food.  
  
Guzmán shakes his head at her. “Is that why you came here?”

He sits down on the bed next to her, and the irony of this entire thing isn’t lost on her. He’s the one who reaches for her and pulls her closer. That distinction feels important to make.  
  
She’s been so busy trying to forget, she’s forgotten what it’s like to remember. She does now, as she feels his hand on her arm, remembers him coming onto her at her party a few months ago, back when things were fucked up, but not unsalvageable. Fucked up, but not _this_.

Back then she didn’t think she’d ever be back here, leaning into his touch like a woman so starved for affection, Lu can hardly recognize herself in her.

Things were different, even just a week ago, before she inadvertently caused someone’s death. Now that she’s let herself acknowledge that, she’s pretty sure she isn’t nearly as drunk as she should be. If she isn’t gonna get wasted, she’ll at least give in to one of her other vices. He’s always been one of the hardest to shake.  
  
“You let me in,” she observes, then gets to her feet so she can let her loose summer dress fall to the floor. Her underwear doesn’t match, because even Lu takes time off from looking her best these days, and she finds she doesn’t give a shit when she sees that intoxicating glint of mischief in his eyes. He wants her. She’ll never not want Guzmán to want her.  
  
Lu just loves feeling wanted.  
  
He whispers, “Happy birthday,” against the apple of her cheek on a breath when she’s busy trying not to scream his name, and she almost feels okay, for a moment.  
  
They get dressed in silence in the morning, and at the funeral, she doesn’t speak to him. It’s bad enough that last night happened at all — they don’t need to make interacting a habit.  
  
She’ll be in New York soon enough.  
  
—

She hears about the breakup from Carla, but she gets the details from Omar. Carla refused to tell her _why_ Guzmán broke up with this random girl he met in law school, because the blonde still thinks Lu has lingering feelings for her ex. Lu isn’t a walking cliché, thank you very much. Thankfully Omar has no qualms whatsoever about telling her about the whole thing in detail, even if it’s on FaceTime at one in the morning Madrid time. It’s very convenient for her that Ander doesn’t keep secrets from his boyfriend.  
  
It’s really none of her business, except she’s convinced everything’s her business, a little bit. Guzmán being single is information she’ll file away for later. You never know.  
  
“She cheated on him,” Omar tells her one evening in May as she’s sitting with her back against the wall of her New York dorm room, on the floor because there’s nowhere else to sit while she has unfolded laundry strewn all over her bed.  
  
Someone cheated on Guzmán. The fucking irony. Lu bites her lip, trying not to laugh, and Omar immediately calls her out on it. “What? I get to gloat _a_ _little_.”  
  
Omar sighs, then says, “Maybe don’t tell Nadia,” and Lu nods, even though she thinks that’s bullshit. Nadia hasn’t even mentioned Guzmán in months, and she’s definitely been dating other people, but Lu has recently learned she isn’t actually terrible at keeping secrets. Her roommate doesn’t know she slept with Guzmán last June, for example. She’s been trying to get better at being considerate. Considerate about what she shares with people, that is; it doesn’t stop her from acting on impulses.  
  
“You better be free the weekend I get back to Madrid,” Lu says instead, grinning into the camera. Finals are almost over, and she’s beyond excited to be back in Europe soon.  
  
She’s nervous, too. New York has been great. New York has been nothing short of amazing, really, and she’d wax poetic about new beginnings and personal growth and all that jazz if she didn’t think she’d bore herself to tears with it.  
  
Lu is doing okay, is her point. For once in her life she actually kind of feels at ease with things.  
  
Columbia is challenging, but Lu loves challenges even more than she loves to excel, so she’s thriving. A friend of a friend of a friend — that’s what the Mexican community is like in New York — put her in touch with an art curator a few weeks back, and somehow a casual chat about Lu considering a minor in art to round out her business degree led to her getting an internship with some guy who sells rich people fancy home decor. That doesn’t kick off until July, so she’ll get to stay in Madrid for about a month, but she’s already a little too excited.  
  
Things are _happening_ for her. She can hardly contain her excitement.   
  
Carla will be back in Madrid too, renting an apartment for the summer to avoid her parents, and Lu shamelessly gets her to agree to let her stay with her. She could’ve stayed with Nadia’s parents, but Lu has a feeling she’ll spend a lot of her nights coming home at indecent hours, or not coming home at all and— well. She doesn’t want Nadia’s conservative parents to think their only daughter is being corrupted by an outright harlot.  
  
This is the only time off she gets before her internship; she’s going to make the most of it.  
  
She’s barely dragged her suitcase through the door of the cute downtown loft when Carla shuffles over and wraps her up in a tight hug.  
  
“We have so much to talk about,” Carla says, and Lu grins at her. She loves their friendship. They’re not the kind of friends who stay in constant contact, so when they do find the time to catch up, it’s always a blast, dramatic story after story.  
  
“I’ll shower,” Lu tells her, looking around the room. “You get the wine ready.”  
  
It feels great to be on the receiving end of Carla’s bashful smile again.  
  
—

Carla practically _begs_ her to have a joint birthday party.  
  
They used to do this every year — her birthday is June 19th, and Carla’s is just two days later, so growing up, they’d get their parents to plan their parties together. It allowed them to throw incredibly decadent soirees; doubling the budget meant double the fun, too.  
  
“Come on, you haven’t seen anyone since you’ve been back,” the blonde urges and Lu rolls her eyes.  
  
That’s not even true. She’s seen Omar, and Nadia, and Ander once when he picked Omar up from their movie night, and Rebeka, and… Carla obviously just thinks she’s avoiding Guzmán. That’s definitely it.  
  
“Carla, I do not _want_ to see him,” she tells her, rolling her eyes when Carla scoffs at her. “There are more important things in life.”  
  
The look on Carla’s face reads _like what?!_ and Lu totally forgot about this — about how her friend manages to be so perceptive and yet simultaneously so annoying about it at all times.  
  
“You _so_ want to see him.”  
  
She doesn’t appreciate Carla’s tone. On a superficial level, Lu is curious about what Guzmán is up to these days, sure. What he looks like these days, whether he still smells like that cologne she picked out for him for his sixteenth birthday… So no, of course she wouldn’t _mind_ seeing him. But she told herself she wouldn’t, and she isn't going to let one stupid teasing remark from her best friend change her mind. 

“I don’t need that sort of drama in my life.”

Carla laughs. “You love his special brand of drama, _babe_ ,” the blonde mimics, which totally justifies the way Lu slaps her thigh. “Please. You can’t tell me you don’t think about him.”

There are too many layers to the concept of missing an ex, Lu thinks. On some level, she’ll probably always think of Guzmán fondly, even when she shouldn’t. Nostalgia does that to you — makes you remember things as better than they actually were — and she’s not naive enough to think they were ever good for each other.

Curiosity gets the best of her, in the end.

“Fine. But we’ll do it on _my_ birthday,” she insists. “If you’re forcing me to party.”

It’s obvious Carla is delighted with that response, and before Lu knows it, she’s showing her venues on her iPad, talking about a mile a minute until Lu tells her to just pick whatever she likes best. She’s pretty sure the venue isn’t gonna make the night any better or worse. Besides, it’s evident Carla has already put plenty of thought into this whole thing.

Carla sends out a fancy email that night, telling people to RSVP, and Lu kind of wonders if she should’ve changed her number when Guzmán texts her at eleven, asking about the party and whether she’s excited about her _gift_.

(It has to be _him —_ he’s the gift, right? She’s not naive enough to think he’s suddenly become a thoughtful person who just buys their friends birthday presents unprompted. His text goes unanswered.)

—

On her birthday, she wears a low-cut burgundy dress, the color of a beautiful glass of rioja. The first thing Valerio tells her when he sees her in it, after glancing at her matching _don’t fuck with me_ shade of deep red lipstick, is, “Poor Guzmán.”

That’s a compliment, and Lu would never turn one of those down. She grins at him, then leads him over to the bar for a shot of tequila and busies herself with greeting the people arriving instead of worrying about why she hasn’t seen Guzmán yet.

She shouldn’t care. It’s her birthday, for fuck’s sake, and she isn’t gonna spend it anxiously anticipating her ex-boyfriend’s arrival. She’s good at keeping entertained, anyway — she spends time catching up with old friends, random classmates she’s lost touch with, then plays an embarrassing round of beer pong with Valerio and Rebeka, who are as competitive and yet uncoordinated as her so it ends with all of them embracing in a tipsy huddle.

Sometime after midnight, Lu finds herself sitting with her back against one of the chimneys on the converted rooftop patio they rented for the night, hidden away from view. As extroverted as she is, she’s enjoying having a quiet moment to herself. Even someone as talkative as her has their limits.

Guzmán slides down the tiled chimney wall until their arms are touching, and she instinctively leans closer, resting her head on his shoulder. She’s seen him around all night, of course, has even waved at him from across the room, but for some reason, they both decided to keep their distance from one another.

Lu breathes him in, then laughs when the familiar scent hits her nostrils.

“Ralph Lauren? Still?”

It’s kind of admirable, how much he enjoys sticking to things. He’s the kind of person who finds a shirt they like and buys it in three colors; Lu could _never_. Guzmán is steady, somewhat predictable, and arguably a safe choice — when he isn’t in the mood to cheat, that is. Maybe she’s not doing this older version of him justice, but Lu likes holding grudges. She enjoys tending to them like they’re her little garden, watering them as the years go by.

Guzmán is a safe choice, and perhaps she’s the shirt he liked and bought in multiple colors in this metaphor because they always end up back here. Right now, he’s playing with her hair, sort of absentmindedly brushing his fingers through it and she finds that unbelievably attractive. He could be kissing her, or touching her properly, but he knows, clearly, that they’ve got all night. He knows she’d never push him away.  
  
The foregone conclusion of it all has her feeling heady with anticipation.

Lu kisses him then, just leans over unceremoniously to capture those pillowy lips of his with hers, and swallows the little moan he lets out. There’s music playing, and they’re hidden away from view, but the last thing she wants is for any of their friends to find them like this. This is between them; it’s nobody’s business. She left any interest in publicly laying claim to him behind when she graduated high school.

“Shit, babe.” Guzmán mouths at her throat, and she immediately moves over to straddle his lap. Lu has always, _always_ hated pet names, but for some reason, they’re okay when he uses them. “Let’s get out of here.”

Before she even grabs his wrist to check the time on his watch, she’s already nodding, and when she sees it’s almost two in the morning, she gets up and holds a hand out to him. He reaches for her again and she puts some distance between them, just says, “Don’t,” like they have any chance in hell at hiding this from their friends. “Meet me downstairs in five.”

With that said, Lu walks away and finds Carla. She hugs the blonde goodbye and completely ignores the suggestive remark that falls from her lips. “I’m not gonna be home tonight,” the blonde adds, which gets Lu to raise her brow at her. So she’s not the only one spending the night with an ex. “Do you have your keys?”

It’s apparent a couple of people have already left or drunkenly passed out somewhere, so Lu only hugs Nadia and Omar goodbye, then leaves without any further fanfare. If Nadia knows what she’s up to, she’s discreet enough not to mention it right now, and Lu is grateful for that.

Someone reaches for her hand and pulls her close the second she gets off the elevator, and if she didn’t recognize the rough grasp he’s got on her hips or how he’s somehow the perfect height for her to kiss while she’s wearing these heels, she’d consider screaming at what could be a random attacker.

“Come back to mine,” she tells him and he doesn’t question her, just walks after her like a man on a mission. Maybe he _is_ on one.

The short walk to the apartment feels longer than it is, if only because Guzmán is holding her hand.

She’s more sober than she was on her last birthday, but that hardly makes a difference for this next part. The urgency is still there. She pulls his shirt over his head, unbuttons his pants and watches him step out of his shoes, then his jeans. They’ve done this too many times for her to ever feel awkward about things, so she takes a minute to let her eyes linger. His chest is still unfairly broad, his abs still unreasonably defined, and she allows herself to acknowledge how much she missed him, for just a second.

When her eyes meet his, they’re dark, and he’s right behind her seconds later, his hand on the zipper of her dress as the other pushes it off her shoulders. In her heels, she’s tall enough to use his shoulder for leverage, so when she kisses him next, it’s only right that he grabs onto her ass and lifts her up.

The next word he says is her name, his voice a full octave lower, and she knows any teasing is over when he unceremoniously drops her onto her bed and looks right at her as he steps out of his briefs. She keeps her eyes trained on his and grins, reaching behind her back to unclasp her bra, and suddenly he’s pulling her to the edge of the bed by her foot, leaning down to drag her lace panties off her hip. She’s still wearing her heels, but this hardly feels like the right moment to point that out.

Of course, Lu has slept with other people since last June — she’s a gorgeous young woman, so she’s not particularly hurting for male attention. She’s had good sex, hell, she’s had _great_ sex in the past twelve months, and yet nothing quite compares to the way she feels when Guzmán drags her into his lap and distracts her with a kiss while he sneaks a hand down her body.

“Fuck, baby, please,” he whines out when she grinds down on him, and she just _melts_ into him. This whole pet name kink really isn’t great for her restraint.

Stilling her hips completely, she stops kissing him long enough to ask, “Aren’t you gonna wish me a happy birthday?” and when he turns them around and boxes her in against the mattress, she doesn’t get a chance to say anything else before he hoists her leg up around his hip and pushes into her.

If she only gets one night with him, she’s gonna make it count.

—

When the time comes to figure out her plans for the summer again the next year, Lu considers spending it in Mexico. She’s got plenty of family there, some cousins her age who she could stay with, and she deserves a summer off after she spent her last one interning.  
  
She could do that, but she doesn’t. Carla’s still got the apartment in Madrid, which she apparently owns now, and Lu wouldn’t _mind_ spending her summer traveling around a bit, using Spain as her home base.  
  
The thing is, she’s seen Guzmán is dating someone new on Instagram. Spending her birthday away from him sounds kind of weird to her now that they’ve accidentally started a… new birthday tradition. But she’s a big girl, and he owes her nothing — it’s a depressing conclusion to draw, but it's true — so she packs her bags and completely ignores any intrusive thoughts of disappointment.  
  
Carla is in the South of Spain with her new boyfriend for their birthday week, and again, Lu reminds herself she does not get to take offense at that. They live separate lives all year; Carla isn’t obligated to plan her summer around her. Really, Lu is happy for the blonde. She’s glad she found someone to tolerate long-term.  
  
That still leaves her with no plans for her birthday. Omar and Ander are traveling, Nadia is spending the summer in New York, working for one of her professors, and Lu has no interest in spending her special day with her brother and his abrasive on-again-off-again girlfriend, Rebeka.  
  
She’s pretty sure fate is on her side when she sits down for a nice, lavish solo birthday brunch at her favorite restaurant and sees Guzmán and his mother out on the terrace, chatting over coffee. Laura spots her, immediately waves her over, and then it’s like Lu never left — his mother hugs her, insists she join them for the meal and only makes five or six pointed remarks about Guzmán’s declining taste in women within the hour.  
  
Lu isn’t gonna lie — it’s flattering to hear. Guzmán’s foot brushes her calf under the table when she nods and smiles smugly. Is he poking fun at her? It’s her birthday; today is hardly the right day for modesty.  
  
“I just worry about him, you know? No mother wants to see their son end up alone.”  
  
The pointed look he gives her must be related to the fact that his mother has no idea he’s dating anyone. Lu isn’t sure how serious things are, but she’s seen him tagged in a couple of Instagram posts the girl in question uploaded. She winks at him when Laura isn’t looking, then puts a hand on his mother’s arm and says, “I’m sure you’ll be able to auction him off to the highest bidder if need be.”  
  
When Laura goes to the ladies' room, Guzmán turns to her and just says, “Don’t be so smug,” and she lets out a laugh — a real one — as she throws her head back. He has a thing for her neck, she knows, and the angle of that movement shows it off, so. Lu is nothing if not creative when it comes to reminding Guzmán of what he’s missing, again and again.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
After brunch — which his mother insists on paying for — she’s left alone with Guzmán while Laura brings the car around. He’s grinning at her, starts playing with the headband in her hair, and she hits him in the shoulder when she notices him glancing at her lips.  
  
“Behave.”  
  
He scoffs, as if what she’s asking him to do is in any way rude, and not just expected from a man who has no right to be ogling her due to his apparent current relationship status. He forfeited that right long ago. Before she can point this out, Laura drives up and honks as she waves him over, and Lu doesn’t allow herself to like the familiar scent of his cologne when he wraps her up in a tight hug.  
  
“Call me later, okay?”  
  
It’s Lu’s turn to scoff. “I deleted your number.”  
  
He holds her at arm's length, then flashes her that obnoxious grin of his again and says, “No, you didn’t.”  
  
It’s unsettling to think he knows her well enough to tell.  
  
—  
  
“You did _not_ say that. There’s no way that’s what happened.”  
  
Guzmán is perched on the floor in Carla’s apartment, resting his head against Lu’s knees for no reason whatsoever. It’s a large couch — he could just sit next to her.  
  
Turns out she was able to find his number after all. That was two hours ago, and now she’s comfortably tipsy, well on her way to drunk, and they’re talking for once, which never really happens anymore.  
  
“Yeah, I did,” he says, leaning his head back to grin up at her. “It was the only way to get an extension on the essay.”  
  
She still can’t picture Guzmán attending university for some reason. She definitely can’t picture him in _law_ _school_ , even though the idea of him confidently arguing with the prosecution is kind of making her feel things.  
  
Lu runs a hand through his hair, messing it up enough for him to huff as he reaches up to fix it again. She loves that he’s grown it out a little more. “It’s worrying to think the future leaders of our judiciary are this careless.”  
  
“It’s cute that _that’s_ what you’re worried about.”  
  
Is that… Is he… Wait, what the hell is he playing at? Maybe she’s just paranoid, but she instantly flashes back to the fact that he apparently has a girlfriend — a girlfriend which he hasn’t mentioned all day. She knees him in the back and moves over on the couch, and predictably, he gets the hint and sits down next to her instead, her feet in his lap now.  
  
For a moment they just sit there in silence, each nursing a drink as they avoid talking about anything further. When he runs a hand over her ankle and moves it down to her foot, she lets her eyes fall closed and whines.  
  
Maybe she’s a little hard up. Finding suitable hookups hasn’t exactly been a priority as of late, not with finals to study for and assignments to hand in. Then she got to Madrid and… She’s been too lazy to really bother with finding suitable options. Casual sex is overrated; it’s rarely good enough to warrant the effort that goes into procuring it in the first place.  
  
Guzmán’s got the reflexes of a tiger when it comes to pouncing on prey. As soon as he hears her little whine of appreciation, he tugs her down the couch until she’s got her legs slung over his. She ends up sitting in his lap before she even really realizes it’s happening.  
  
Then he’s gently brushing her hair behind her ear, his eyes glazed over and his pupils wide, and it’s not fair, how he’s doing this when she’s pretty sure there’s someone else.  
  
(It’s not fair to the other woman. Lu herself isn’t exactly upset about him cheating on someone else with _her_. Call her selfish, but the way she sees it, it’s none of her business.)  
  
“Guzmán,” she warns, but she’s under his spell now, can’t quite make herself move away from him even though she should. “Is this a good idea?”  
  
He hasn’t outright mentioned a girlfriend or even a casual fling. It’s not up to her to make him talk about it, and it’s not her responsibility to keep him from cheating on this girl whose name she doesn’t know, but asking him to acknowledge this is a conscious decision they’re making is important to her anyway.  
  
His laugh is low, barely audible, but she feels it where her hand has come to rest on his chest. “I didn’t actually get you any other birthday present.”  
  
That’s good enough for her. She moves one of her legs so she can properly face him, then practically swoons when he leans forward to bite at her neck instead of just kissing her.  
  
“I fucking missed you.”  
  
She has no idea what to say to that, but she thinks he likes how she grabs onto his hair and kisses him in response.  
  
—  
  
Her junior year of college goes about as well as the previous two, except Nadia has a serious boyfriend who she’s living with now, so Lu moves into a tiny hole in the wall studio by herself. Part of it is covered by her scholarship, the rest she pays for using the generous trust fund her grandparents have so graciously provided her with, and even though the place isn’t much bigger than her Dad’s office back home, it’s _hers_ and she loves it.

Most of November, she spends sick in bed with a terrible bout of mono, and even when some of the symptoms ease up, she still feels weak and tired all the time. Nadia comes over and brings her groceries, sometimes even cooks for her, but Lu still loses a significant amount of weight without even trying. She never thought gaining weight could be as difficult as losing it was on all the fad diets she tried as a teenager — turns out it is. Even a few months later, she continues to struggle to look and feel healthy again. 

That’s why she throws herself into a new relationship. After agonizing over how uncomfortable she feels in her own skin these days, it’s nice to be around someone that worships at her feet.

She meets Chris in her comparative political lit seminar, where he opens his mouth to speak and Lu for once doesn’t feel the immediate urge to correct a classmate. That’s when she finds out he’s smart, and when she asks him to go for a drink with her, she finds out he’s funny, too.

 _Boyfriend_ sounds so... serious. They’ve been dating since the semester started, and it’s April now, and Lu likes him. She doesn’t want to overthink any of this and ruin it for herself. Really, she’s trying to be better at going with the flow. They like each other. She likes spending time with him. Chris adores her, and fine, he’s her boyfriend, if she absolutely must put a label on it.

The text she gets on a Thursday night is weird, and it’s made weirder by the fact that she was actually just thinking about Guzmán this week. He’s been oddly quiet on Instagram lately. She hates herself for noticing, and she hates that _that’s_ the only way for her to gauge whether he’s okay these days.

 _‘I’m in New York, text me your address’_ stares back at her from her phone screen, and after the initial confusion passes — after she replies with her address and avoids her phone for thirty minutes like a coward — she starts thinking about how incredibly rude this is of him. He couldn’t have warned her? Called her before boarding a flight? It’s not fair to spring this on her.

It’s not fair of him to assume she wants to see him, even though she does. Of course, she does.

Then her doorbell rings and Lu wonders if it’s too late to just pretend she isn’t home. She’s not dressed for company, though Guzmán is the last person she’d care about that with. Still. The unexpected visit is unwelcome.

When he stands in front of her minutes later, he’s got a huge backpack slung over his shoulder, like he’s been traveling for a while. He grins at her and takes her in, and Lu feels incredibly uncomfortable being scrutinized like that. She doesn’t like her body right now; having someone else stare at where her protruding collarbone is left exposed by her off-the-shoulder shirt makes her want to hide away in bed.

Neither of them has said a word, but she still motions for him to come in and smiles a little when he sets his backpack down with a sigh. He looks bigger somehow, like he’s grown or just gained muscle, and it’s stupid how that makes her want to crawl into his lap and kiss him, but it does.

“Aren’t you gonna welcome me properly?

That sounds sexual to her, probably because she’s always closely associated him with physical comfort.

Lu rolls her eyes. “What, you just randomly show up here and expect me to be happy about it?”

Guzmán drops his jacket on the floor next to his bag, then steps towards her and opens his arms for a hug, and okay, fine, she wouldn’t _mind_ a hug. He’s so much bigger than her, if only because she feels so fucking small these days. Cathartic is a stupid word to use for all this, but the whole hug kind of is. He’s very comforting when he wants to be.

The last time she saw him was on her birthday last June when he cheated on his girlfriend with her, and she knows for a fact he kept seeing the girl after if social media is anything to go by. No, she isn’t going to mention that to him, but it serves as a gentle reminder to herself on what _not_ to do tonight.

“Tell me you have food at home,” he says thirty minutes later, time they’ve spent sitting on her bed as he explained how his Dad had to go to Boston for work and he sort of just decided to tag along last minute. “I’m fucking starving.”

She doesn’t, but that’s fine. “This is New York. You can order anything you want and it’ll be at your door in minutes.”

His stomach actually growls then and she giggles as she leans over to pet it teasingly. Not her best idea; all it does is make her remember how incredibly ripped he is. It’s not like she didn’t know. She shouldn’t still feel so drawn to him.

They order Chinese food, and Lu nearly chokes on a spring roll when Guzmán makes her laugh right as she takes a bite. She’s coughing a little, but she’s laughing too, and his fingers rub circles on her back reassuringly until her breathing has calmed down. Then his hand moves to her shoulder, to her collarbone, and she can tell he wants to ask about her new look. He knows her body too well to not notice the way the weight loss has hardened her features; made her more angular.

“I was really sick last year,” she says, unprompted, because she doesn’t need him to speculate. Everyone else in her life has been doing enough of that lately. She rolls her eyes for good measure. “It’s surprisingly hard to gain back weight when you’re as tiny as me.”

She’s not sure what she was expecting him to do, but it isn’t this. Guzmán leans over and kisses the hollow of her throat, then her neck, and Lu is so uncomfortable with having him see her like this, she actually pushes him away.

“Don’t.”

“Let me,” he says, and she feels her resolve begin to slip. God, she’s so easy.

Maybe it’s the teenage trauma of it all. She remembers how he used to roll his eyes at her when she talked about her body in riddles that alluded to her being displeased with it, and she also remembers how he never really corrected her. Most importantly, she remembers agonizing over his lack of response, thinking maybe he secretly agreed. It’s an odd moment to think it, but she’s kind of impressed with how much nicer he’s become in the past few years.

A single tear makes its way down her cheek, and she wipes at it aggressively, then turns back to her food. She wants to go back to how comfortable and easy this conversation was five minutes ago.

“How long are you in town for?”

“Just until Saturday. My dad is picking me up on his way to D.C.”

Two days are fine. She can handle two days of having to be around her ex, even if the time she’s spent with him over the past two and a half years was limited to birthdays in bed. It doesn’t have to be a big deal — they’re friends. (Right?)

Lu isn’t him, and this isn’t _that_ , so when Guzmán wraps an arm around her waist later that night in bed, she pushes back against him and says, “I have a boyfriend.”

His hand moves lower, teasing at her hipbones, and she must be a terrible person if she’s hoping he’ll find a way to make her forget about Chris, about common sense and holding herself to a higher standard.  
  
She never thought she’d end up a cheater. Truthfully, she always thought these things worked differently — if your Dad is an alcoholic, you stay away from booze; if you’ve been cheated on, you don’t start cheating yourself.

“Yeah? Where is he?”

Guzmán sounds possessive, like he can’t handle the thought of sharing her, and Lu keens out his name. It’s fucked up, how she still gets off on him wanting her.

Then his fingers slip under the waistband of her PJ shorts, the shorts she decided didn’t really warrant wearing underwear underneath, and he seals the deal when he noses at her neck and bites down on her earlobe.

“Bet he can’t make you come like I do.”

“Guzmán.”

The satisfied little scoff he lets out when he finds her wet for him is obnoxious, and she tries to grind up against his fingers, wants him to touch her properly. This won’t do.

“We shouldn’t—,” she interrupts herself with a low moan when his knuckles brush her clit. “Guzmán, _please_.”

She has no idea what she’s asking for.

“Tell me to stop and I will.”

That’s cute. She knows he means it, too, but no.

Lu doesn’t know how to say no to him — she never has. She’s bad at it under normal circumstances, but when he’s pressed against her like this, his fingers inches from where she wants them most, she’s absolutely incapable of denying that she wants this; that she wants _him_.

If she lets this go on, she’ll feel entirely at his mercy, and while she probably is, she doesn’t need him to know. His ego is big enough as is. Lu turns around in his arms, then pecks his lips and forces him to sit up so she can not only take his shirt off but straddle him, too.

She pulls her hair into a ponytail and sighs when he spends more time staring at her up close instead of just taking her clothes off. “Hurry up.”

It’s not her birthday, but it feels pretty fucking good anyway.

—

She fucks him again in the morning when the sun is just peeking through the blinds, both of them fighting sleep as their hips collide in what starts out slow and hazy before it turns desperate and frantic.

Guzmán is on top of her, kissing her, not bothering with words now that she’s using her body to tell him exactly what she wants.

It’s overwhelming.

Over the past three years, she’s made a conscious effort to keep their sexual encounters as fast and furious and aggressive as possible. They don’t _do_ slow morning sex; in fact, the last two times she let herself see him, she made sure he wouldn’t spend the night.

His name is on the tip of her tongue, and it’s the only thing she can think to say, the only way she can articulate how mind-numbingly good this feels.

“Fuck, baby, that’s it,” he rasps against her lips when she feels her climax hit. “You’re so fucking good to me.”

She’s pretty sure no one can blame her for the high-pitched scream she lets out in response. If he wasn't using it for good, it would be irritating to think he knows her this well.

After, when they’re both still breathing hard, Guzmán stays on top of her, his elbows boxing her in on either side. She’s too content to come up with a stupid line about how the smug look on his face is annoying, and when he leans forward and bites at her collarbone, she instantly grabs him by the hair to keep him close.

It’s the hushed whispers of praise that really get her. She doesn’t deserve them, and she’s frustrated with him for trying to make her feel beautiful when she’s obviously not these days.

“There’s no need to lie,” she tells him when he’s hovering over her, kissing his way down her body like he’s hunting for treasure. “I know what I look like.”

Guzmán scoffs, all indignant and annoyed, and she ignores how he obviously cares. Friends care about each other’s feelings; that’s a given.  
  
Her phone goes off when he’s got her on the brink of her second orgasm of the morning, and Lu reaches for it to silence her alarm. She should start getting ready for class, but the odds of her actually going today are slim to none.  
  
Guzmán licks his lips as he pulls back to look at her, his chin shiny with the evidence of just how badly she needs him to get back to work. “Anything important?”  
  
Lu whines out his name and tugs on his hair until he licks a stripe up her center; anything else can wait.  
  
Chris and she usually spend time at the library together in between their respective Friday classes, which obviously isn’t in the cards for today. She texts him saying she’s not feeling her best, then turns her phone off and pretends Guzmán isn’t grinning a little too smugly when she turns around again.

Nobody’s perfect.  
  
—

Friday night, Lu spends in much of the same way her day started.

Nadia calls her as she’s sitting with her back against Guzmán’s chest, neither of them dressed aside from the duvet thrown over Lu’s lap, and she debates not answering but does in the end. If she didn’t, Nadia would worry, and keep trying, and probably show up at her door eventually; she only lives ten blocks from here.

Lu holds her phone up so Guzmán understands why she’s paused the movie they’re watching, then bats his hand away when he starts trailing it down her body. Not fucking funny.

“Hey,” Lu says into the phone. She thinks it comes out sounding fairly normal. “What’s up?”

She hears Nadia chuckle. “It’s Friday. We usually hang out on Fridays.”

Right. They kind of do. In between all the fun she had showing Guzmán around the city today, she forgot to cancel on Nadia. With how quiet the room is, she’s sure Guzmán can hear every word Nadia is saying, even though she didn’t put the call on speaker.

“Raincheck for tomorrow?”

“If you have a good excuse.”

She feels rather than hears herself let out a low moan when Guzmán uses her current state of distraction to roughly palm her breasts, and even though she clamps a hand over her mouth the second she notices, she knows it’s too late. He laughs behind her and she elbows him.

“Oh god,” Nadia says, scandalized. “Gross, Lu. Just call me tomorrow.”

She barely gets out a, “Sorry,” before the line goes silent and when she throws her head back as she groans, Guzmán just leans down to kiss the exposed juncture of her neck. That’s so not helping.

“I take it she doesn’t know I’m in town.”

Lu reaches back blindly to tug on his hair.

“No one knows you’re here.”

She’d like to keep it that way.

He tells her to text him sometime when he leaves the next morning, and she rolls her eyes as she hugs him.

“No promises.”

—

The problem is that she does text him then, sporadically, usually when she’s drunk and alone at night. It only happens a handful of times, and she always stops short of proper sexting. Lu has certain standards for herself; she isn’t ready to throw caution to the wind yet.

Once or twice, she’s at Chris’ place, and yet still can’t resist the urge to text Guzmán whatever important drunk revelation she had that night. Most of them are perfectly innocent. She finds out she doesn’t hate the taste of coconut anymore, at a party, which reminds her of him because he used to get annoyed with her for not drinking his mother’s terrible Malibu cocktails, so she obviously has to tell him. One night she drunkenly discovers one of her teachers kissing a girl that looks at least twenty years younger than him at a club. She needs to tell _someone_ , and texting him feels like texting no one because he tends to be asleep when it happens. In the mornings, she rarely remembers what she said, and thankfully he doesn’t tend to reply.

It’s the middle of May, and she’s cramming for finals when she slips up.

She’s at the library one afternoon, hidden away from view in one of the soundproof little study booths. Her phone vibrates with a text from Guzmán — just a picture of him with his mother, pointing to an abundance of home-cooked food captioned, ‘ _Another Mother’s Day in the books,’_ and she isn’t sure why that turns her on as much as it does. It’s just cute, how well he takes care of Laura. He’s such a model son these days.

She takes a selfie, laughing when she notices just how sleep-deprived and miserable she looks and types, ‘ _Three more exams to go. Need something to take the edge off. Should I get into drugs?’_

Lu watches as the message goes from unread to read, then sighs when three dreaded dots appear on the screen. The dots are gone as quickly as they came, though. Maybe it’s better this way. She was out of line — it’s wise of him to ignore her. Her women in leadership reading is dry, and she gets through about half a page before her phone vibrates with another text from him.

_‘Into drugs or into my bed...’_

Fuck. What he said doesn’t even make grammatical sense, and yet Lu feels herself blush. She doesn’t reply, but that doesn’t seem to discourage him.

_‘Take a break. Call me.’_

She can’t just... God, he can’t just expect her to go along with any of this. What makes him think this is okay?She ignores the heat pooling low in her belly and focuses on ending this conversation instead.

_‘I’m at the library, pervert.’_

_‘Shame.’_

He follows that message up with a selfie, him in what she clearly recognizes to be his bedroom, and when she glances past his bare chest, she can tell by the placement of his shoulder that his other hand is... Otherwise occupied.

 _God_. She dials his number before she can change her mind.

“You’re disgusting,” she tells him when he picks up on the first ring. “What if I’d had company?”

“You said you’re in the library.”

His breathing sounds slightly labored, and she really doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing talking to him. She needs to get back to her reading.

“For a twenty-one-year-old, you sure are acting sixteen right now.”

“From what I recall, you _liked_ me at sixteen.”

Clever. “Let’s call it a temporary lapse in judgment.”

“That doesn’t explain the past four years.”

Lu takes a deep breath. This is above her pay grade as the girl he sleeps with once or twice a year, regardless of relationship status. She isn’t going to keep him company while he... God, she refuses to even _think_ the word.

“Lu...”

She knows _exactly_ what he wants to hear, but she will not go there. She refuses to. “Stop it.”

Guzmán moans. “Fuck. You know what I’m thinking about?”

You could say she has a few ideas. The list of suitable memories that might serve as inspiration to him at the moment is certainly long. This doesn’t sound like the sort of question he wants a real answer to, though. If only she had the willpower to hang up on him now....

“You and me. In the school showers. God, fuck, baby... The way your eyes would roll back when I did that thing you li—,”

“ _Guzmán!_ ”

Enough is enough. This is where she draws the line.

“You’ve proven your point. I’m hanging up now.”

His usual indignant scoff sounds more hollow and distracted now. “Yeah, go call your boyfriend. Make him think he’s the reason you’re this wet.”

Even though she knows no one else can hear him, Lu still looks around to make sure she isn’t being watched. She knows she must look flustered, at least, and she’s pretty sure she isn’t going to get any more studying done today.

There are a million comebacks she can think of, but most of them would prove his point. She settles on, “Have fun,” then listens to his breathing speed up and instantly ends the call.

Holy fucking shit.

The worst part is, of course, that he’s absolutely right. She’s practically _dying_ for some release, and rubbing her thighs together isn’t helping at all. Like the predictable fool she is, she calls Chris and asks him to meet her on campus so they can go back to his place. The whole thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

She’s on her stomach next to him later, playing around on her phone, when she gets another message from Guzmán. She can see there’s a picture attached, and she isn’t going to risk opening it, not with her boyfriend looking over her shoulder. It’s late in Madrid, and based on their earlier conversation, she has a feeling this exchange isn’t going to be any more appropriate.

“Your friends have weird names,” Chris comments, running a hand down her spine. That feels a little too good so she lets out a content hum. “Is Guzmán a girl's name?”

She’s not lying, she’s just... Not telling the truth. “Yes.”

Unfortunately, Lu is still incredibly petty, so when Chris finally falls asleep, an arm slung across her chest, she holds her phone up for a dimly lit selfie and gives the camera her best smirk. She sends it to Guzmán without any further explanation. The fact that she’s topless in the picture hardly matters.

Scrolling up in the conversation, she sees he’s sent her a picture of them at an event their junior year of high school, posing with his parents, and she knows why. You can’t tell from the picture, but they’d just gotten back from a heated shouting match in the washroom which ended in one of the single best orgasms Lu has ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

She wakes up to her boyfriend trailing kisses down her shoulder, and when she checks her phone for the time, she finds a text from Guzmán that instantly wakes her up. 

‘ _Break up with him._ ’

—  
  
Guzmán calls her on FaceTime a week before her flight to Madrid, which is not something they do. It’s not something they’ve ever done.

It’s seven for her, so it’s 1:00 for him, and Lu mainly answers because she’s worried something is wrong. Why else would he be calling?

“Are you okay?” she asks as she waits for his video to load. When it finally does, he’s grinning at the camera, almost like he’s happy to see her or something. He’s also shirtless, which she doesn’t appreciate because that makes her feel happy to see _him_.

“A little tipsy.”

Instant alarm bells.

“Guzmán,” she warns. “We are not doing this.”

This, of course, is referring to the recent library incident. Lu has been stubbornly refusing to end things with Chris, even though she definitely feels guilty about the things that went down that day. Not her best moment.

“No, no, no,” he says, grinning even wider. “I just wanted to see you.”

She literally hates him. She hates him because he sounds sincere, on top of mildly intoxicated. Sighing, she rolls her eyes at the camera and shrugs her shoulders, then waits for him to say something.

“Are you pissed at me, or something?”

Is she _pissed_ at him? That’s his question? Well.

“I’m always pissed at you.”

He’s definitely a little more than just tipsy if the unwavering grin is any indication. She knows drunk Guzmán a little too well; the indignant little line on his forehead to indicate confusion, despite the grin, gives him away.

“I was just trying to help,” he says. “With... You deserve better.”

Lu sits up in bed and sighs. She’s only wearing a tank top, no bra, and if she moves her phone down he’d definitely be able to tell. She can’t let that happen.

Why can’t they ever just have a normal conversation, though? Lu wishes both of them were just a little bit better at that. Maybe she’ll try calling him sometime when he’s sober and she isn’t wired from studying all day.

“Guzmán, just sleep it off, okay? Thanks for checking in, but go to bed.”

He just giggles, shaking his head. “I like talking to you.”

“Well, I have an exam to study for.”

“Oh,” he pauses. “Do you like me too?”

Drunk Guzmán is _so_ frustrating. She forgot how impossible it is to have any sort of real conversation with him when he’s like this.

“Okay, goodnight,” she says, hoping he’ll get the hint.

He blurts out, “You look good,” and she groans. Of course. “Did you gain... Never mind.”

She did gain some weight. For the first time in her life, she’s actually glad about that, too; the skeletal look was pretty terrifying. It’s cute to see him worry about bringing up her weight — under normal circumstances she’d crucify him for it.

Lu smiles reluctantly. “I’m great. Thanks for asking.”

“Okay well, text me when you’re back in town, alright?”

“You mean if I’m single.”

A moment’s pause, and then, “Just text me.”

He sends her two more texts in the middle of the night — ‘ _Sorry_ ’ and ‘ _But really, text me_ ’ and when she sees them in the morning she very nearly calls him up to yell at him.

But first things first. She’s got an exam to ace.

—

In the end, things with Chris naturally run their course.

She may help speed things up a bit when she calls him pathetic for letting his parents choose what grad schools he’s applying to. What? It _is_ pathetic, even if she only says it because she knows he’s a little uncomfortable with it, too.

Her decision to leave him has nothing to do with Guzmán. She’s going to be in Europe all summer, and he’ll be on the West Coast, and really, their relationship is based on above average sex and having fun together — that isn’t enough to get them through three whole months apart. And no, it’s not _just_ because she’s hoping to spend her summer with another man.

“You know, I think he was good for you.”

Lu is out for drinks with Nadia and Carla — an odd match, which makes her feel like her two worlds are colliding — and of course her breakup has been the number one topic of conversation for the past thirty minutes.

She takes a sip of her drink. “He’s fine. He’s just not the one, you know? It wouldn’t have worked long distance.”

Carla glances back and forth between them, then rolls her eyes and says, “Please. Are we seriously going to pretend this has nothing to do with your little Guzmán problem?”

Nadia giggles, and Lu says Carla’s name, scandalized at being called out like this. What was she thinking when she agreed to let these two meet? Both of them love making her actually _reflect_ on her behavior which Lu, as a matter of principle, does not do. Now their entire night is undoubtedly going to be dominated by their off-color analysis of Lu’s past relationships.

“She told you, right?” Carla asks Nadia, who nods. Lu didn’t _actually_ tell Nadia everything, but she’s pretty sure the details of how she not only cheated on her boyfriend with her ex but then kept in touch with him via text are nobody’s business but hers. “Like it or not, Lu, he told you to break up with the guy and you did it. You can’t deny that’s how it happened.”

She really wishes she had plausible deniability on her side.

“Whatever. I probably won't even see him.”

Her friends try and fail to keep a straight face, both cracking up the second they see Lu roll her eyes. Maybe she should look for new friends this summer. These two are certainly proving to be useless.

“At least we don’t need to bother with throwing her a birthday party,” Nadia tells Carla.

“Yeah, Lu, have you two decided which bed you’re spending your birthday in this year? Pretty sure it’s his turn to host.”

“Ha-ha, you’re hilarious.”

Her birthday isn’t for another week, but she texts him that night anyway. She tries hard not to smile too wide when he mentions his parents are in Italy for the summer, so he’s got the house to himself.

She likes their birthday tradition a little too much.

—

“Admit it.”

She’s on all fours for him, close, too close to finally letting go for him to be playing games. He tugs on her hair to get her to look back at him and she cries out when his hand moves to wrap around the expanse of her throat instead.

Lu loves when Guzmán goes full possessive psycho on her. She has a feeling he doesn’t have to try very hard to channel it — he’s always been bad at sharing. All she has to do is allude to having been with other men and he’ll be on her in seconds, trying to prove he’s the best she’s ever had. (Will ever have?)

“Please.”

He snaps his hips forward in response, just once, then halts his movements and waits for her to speak again.

“You know what you have to do if you want to come.”

She knows and she will, she’s just not ready to surrender the final remaining shred of dignity she’s got that easily. He’ll have to work a little harder for that.

Pushing her hips back against him, she moans at the friction, then cries out when his grip on her throat tightens and her vision goes blurry. Serves her right for trying to force his hand. Maybe this is why sex with other people is never as fun for her, Lu finds herself thinking. Others treat her like she’s delicate, but Guzmán knows just how she likes her pain to be administered.  
  
She likes having to work for her pleasure.

“Please,” she croaks out, gulping in a breath when he notices her struggle and loosens his grasp on her throat. “I need more.”

He gives her a few shallow thrusts, which feel great, but they’re nowhere near enough. If she’s being honest, she’s on the brink of tears. She’s had enough of the teasing. Must he be so cruel?

“Admit it and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

That’s... Lu thinks that’s a tempting offer, at this point.

She huffs. “Why do you need me to say it?”

“Because.” He angles his hips just right on his next thrust and she cries out. “Because we both value honesty too much to lie to each other.”

Is he fucking high? If she wasn’t on the tiresome brink of orgasm, being denied her rightful climax, she might slip up and laugh, but instead, she just reaches for his hand on her throat and pulls him forward, groaning at the new angle when he lands on top of her and her legs give out.

“You’re fucking deranged.”

He rolls his hips against her and she whines. God, it’s cruel of him to do this to her when he’s taking her from behind. Any other position, and she’d be able to retaliate, or move, but this way she has little to no wiggle room — literally.

It’s cruel and definitely entirely intentional. Guzmán is nothing if not calculating when going after what he wants.

“Just admit you left your little boyfriend because you couldn’t stop thinking about fucking me.”

 _Fuck_. She finds herself unable to focus on anything but the weight of him on top of her, clenching down on him in vain in response to his words. It’s just not enough; she needs his help if she wants this to end well for her.

Lu makes an executive decision she will probably regret later, after the high subsides. Right now she needs her fix, though.

“I did.”

For a second she thinks she’s said the wrong thing, because Guzmán pulls out completely, leaving her to whine at the loss of contact. Before she can voice her complaint, though, he’s pushed her onto her back instead and slots himself in between her spread thighs, pushing her open wider for him. When he slides back into her she keens out his name and wraps her legs around his hip, and he promptly moves one of them up onto his shoulder for better access.

“You did, didn’t you? Because you’re in love with fucking me.”

She hates that this is doing it for her. Sometimes she thinks he wants to own her more than anything — that he’d rather lock her up and keep her for himself than ever let another man touch her again. His filthy mouth has no right to make her feel like this. He picks up the pace, never once letting up, and she wants to slap the stupid smug grin off his face.

“Guzmán, please, just...” She stops short of begging. Even in her current state of arousal, Lu does not beg. It’s unseemly. Gathering all of her remaining restraint, she squeezes his arm and says, “Show me I made the right decision.”

His steady rhythm falters for just a second, and she allows herself to smirk. Finally, she’s managed to get some control over the situation back.

Instead of snapping his hips into her, he grabs her waist with both of his hands and starts impaling her on his length instead, lifting her like she weighs absolutely nothing. Lu can’t think, can’t speak, doesn’t have any clue how she’ll ever snap out of this tantric daze again. All she knows is she never wants it to end, even though she might just die once her climax finally hits.

Death would be a welcome change from the pressure building in her lower body that has her on the brink of madness.

She finally moves a hand down her body to flick at her clit with practiced ease, and before she knows what’s happening, her vision goes white as she finally gets to let go. She thinks she hears herself say something, but doesn’t fully regain control of her body and mind until she feels Guzmán collapse on top of her, his body twitching as the tension drains from it.

“Holy fucking shit,” he whispers against her cheek, and all she can come up with in response is a loud giggle.

That was... yeah. “Best one yet.”

She isn’t sure if she’s talking about birthdays or orgasms. Maybe both.

Guzmán kisses her, gentle and coaxing. She loves him like this, with his defenses down.

“Could you say that again? My ego didn’t quite catch that.”

Groaning, she slaps his cheek lightly, then pecks his lips.

“I said you’re really fucking annoying.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

He leans in to kiss her again, and she can’t find it in herself to move away. He’s so fucking stupid, and she’s stupidly into it.

Lately, she’s been struggling with the reality of just how much she likes this adult version of Guzmán. He’s less jaded and exasperated and more rational, but he’s playful, too. With her, at least.

She’s probably deluding herself because they haven’t fought in a while but... For the first time since they started this ridiculous tradition, she finds herself thinking she might want to see him on days other than June 19th.

—

The next morning, he’s up before her, something she only notices because he kisses her neck and bites at her earlobe until she turns around with a sigh.

“That’s not exactly the birthday wake-up I ordered.”

Guzmán grins. “Well, it’s not your birthday anymore.”

She spends the morning in bed with him, and then they move to the pool, enjoying the complete privacy that comes with having the house to themselves.

“Now that I think about it, bathing suits are sort of pointless,” Lu says, grinning as she beckons Guzmán to swim closer.

He shakes out his wet hair when he gets close enough to splash her with the excess water and she pulls him down for a kiss. That keeps them busy for a while, until he laughs into the kiss and buries his face against her neck.

“Imagine swim class without swim trunks.”

Lu bites her lip. Yeah, that sounds fucking hilarious.

“I’m sure that would’ve saved lots of students from very disappointing sexual encounters.”

Her legs wrap around his waist, and his hands move to her hip to keep her pressed to him, and she can’t think of a reason to go home.

They’re both single. What difference does it make?

—

She spends most of her summer with him. It’s not something she planned on doing, and it doesn’t require conscious effort if she’s being honest with herself.

But she _likes_ spending time with him, and she _loves_ having sex with him, and the two go hand in hand these days, really.

Right before she’s due to fly back to New York in August, Carla invites all their old friends over to the apartment for a low-key drinks thing. Lu puts on a cute dress she knows Guzmán likes, then puts her hair up into a high ponytail — again, because he likes it that way and she enjoys teasing the hell out of him — and even though she starts the night sitting on the other side of the room from him, she ends it in his lap.

His fingers are trailing up her thigh, a turn of events she appreciates but also knows is ill-timed considering there are other people around. None of this is wise.

“Gonna miss you,” he whispers in her ear while they’re surrounded by all of their high school friends because maybe this way it’s easier for him to say. It’s definitely easier for her to ignore.

She can’t afford to get sentimental.

He sleeps over, and she avoids thinking about how this is one of the last nights she’ll get with him until god knows when. The inevitability of that is comforting to her. There will always be a next time. She isn’t sure how she’d cope if she didn’t have that certainty.

Carla doesn’t even make fun of her when they finally emerge from the guest room around lunchtime the next day, just smiles at them and waves goodbye to Guzmán, and Lu thinks that’s what tips her off.

“You’re cute together now,” the blonde tells her as they eat the pizza they ordered. Lu chooses to ignore the pointed implication that they weren’t _always_ cute together. “He’s different around you.”

More truths Lu doesn’t want to acknowledge. She can’t talk if she’s eating, so she takes a comically large bite of pizza, then laughs at her friend and shrugs.

There’s no point in dwelling on what could’ve been.

—

She doesn’t tell any of her friends other than Nadia about graduating early, and she doesn’t mention plans to move back to Madrid until the job offer is finalized and her work visa is approved. Others might call her paranoid, but Lu likes to think of it as keeping the jinxes away — if she keeps things to herself, the odds of having them blow up in her face are lower.  
  
Really, she loves New York. She’s loved her time in the city, her classes at Columbia, the friends she made along the way. The past three and a half years have been nothing short of great, but she’s ready to move on. Thankfully Lu has always been an overachiever, so she took a few too many credits over the course of her time at Columbia, and when she realizes she could graduate in January if she wanted to, she jumps at the chance.  
  
The job she gets through nepotism. There’s no other way to explain it, and she isn’t ashamed to admit it. Carla called in a favor with her father’s art dealer, who in turn helped Lu find a position as a junior assistant curator, and there’s no way in hell any gallery would’ve sponsored a visa for this kind of role if she hadn’t been suggested by a friend of a friend.  
  
She feels oddly content with that knowledge. Lu knows she’ll excel, so the means of how she ended up in the position hardly seem to matter. What’s important is she’s obviously the most qualified person for the job, and she’ll work her ass off to get rid of the pesky junior title which she already hates.  
  
Lu recognizes how privileged she is to have been blessed with such a smooth transition from college to the working world. Carla is still in London, so the apartment in Madrid was sitting vacant until Lu asked her to move in, and not having to look for a place makes the move even easier.  
  
If she didn’t know she’s worked hard to get to where she is, Lu would probably wonder if she’s had it too easy in life.  
  
She gets to Madrid on a Friday morning in late January, and after a sleep-deprived wait for her suitcases, she lugs all three of them around on one of those luggage carts and finds a taxi.  
  
Her weekend is spent getting over jet lag, which is never particularly fun on the way back from the States, and if she’s being honest, she kind of likes that nobody knows she’s in town. She and Guzmán still sometimes text, as if they’re actual friends instead of just exes with benefits, and when he asks about her wild Saturday plans, she’s _this_ close to just telling him to come over. She could, too, but… Maybe she should get a little more sleep before she goes back to making bad choices.  
  
She calls him Monday around lunchtime, because she needs to tell someone. Things are going well for her, and if she doesn’t get to share that with other people, it hardly seems real. So she showers, puts on nice enough matching underwear, and gets ready to head out and meet him. Or have him come over; he can decide.  
  
“Lu?” He sounds surprised to hear from her, and she’s already a little too excited to share the news. “Isn’t it a little early where you are?”  
  
Is that genuine concern she picks up on in his voice? The Guzmán of old would probably shudder at the thought.  
  
“Are you busy right now?”  
  
She hears him shuffle around, and then he says, “Is this a booty call? We talked about this. You’re really bad at making your intentions clear, so just tell me if you’re naked right now.”  
  
He… what? “I mean, I could be,” she laughs. “But I just thought you might wanna come over and celebrate my graduation in person.”  
  
Guzmán is quiet for a moment, and she bites her lip in anticipation for the reaction to come.  
  
“Holy shit, when did you get back?”  
  
She isn’t going to answer that now.  
  
“Just get your ass over here.”  
  
The move to Madrid definitely feels a little more real as soon as she gets her hands on him.  
  
—  
  
They haven’t had a vicious fight like this in years.  
  
It’s a little surprising for Lu when she realizes she’s _missed_ this. What does that say about her?  
  
Guzmán is pacing around her living room, and his jaw is clenched the way it always is when he’s angry but trying to stay calm.  
  
“What the fuck do you want me to say, Lu?”  
  
“Literally anything would be great at this point.”  
  
“Okay, well, I didn’t fucking cheat on you. How could I, when you’ve been shutting me down every single time I try to tell you I want to fucking _be_ with you?”  
  
That’s rich. Classic Guzmán move. Making this her fault somehow by pretending like he’s been _oh-so_ open about his intentions with her. She really wants to slap him, so she does.  
  
“So you’re really gonna tell me you don’t think it’s wrong of you to kiss another woman simply because we haven’t labeled this a—,” Lu adds air quotes for good measure, “ _relationship_?”  
  
Considering all the various cheating they’ve both engaged in over the years, a kiss might seem tame, but Lu was just getting used to the idea of maybe trusting Guzmán enough to call him her boyfriend again. Not anymore.  
  
He has a real knack for that — for always finding just the right moment to make her doubt him again.  
  
It’s the end of March, and they’ve spent the past two months wrapped up in each other. He’s still in school, and Lu is working full time, but they’ve managed to find plenty of time to spend together. Maybe things moved a little too fast.  
  
Guzmán sighs, then walks over to her and tries to reason with her. “Come on. I didn’t kiss _her_ , she kissed _me_. We were drunk, and I literally told you about it the second the vodka was out of my system.”  
  
She can’t trust him. That’s what this boils down to. And no, this isn’t about some stupid classmate of his who decided to drunkenly accost him — that’s just her excuse to freak out and yell at him. The problem with this is that she didn’t _think_ he was cheating the first time, and then it turned out he was, and now Lu doesn’t trust her own intuition anymore. He did that to her. She’s still fucking pissed about it.  
  
Wait, did he say he wanted to _be_ with her earlier? Interesting. Anyway.  
  
She’s baiting him when she says, “Just get out,” because she wants to see what he’ll do.  
  
“Lu.”  
  
“Go.”  
  
Guzmán lets out the most frustrated sound she’s heard him make in all the years she’s known him. If he’s this pissed about her reaction, it’s probably a good thing she’s kicking him out.  
  
“I’m not just gonna leave like this. If I walk through that door now, I probably won’t even see you again until your fucking birthday, or whatever.”  
  
Yeah well. Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe they should go back to that arrangement. It’s obvious neither of them is particularly apt at dealing with these… feelings.  
  
He reaches for her arm, then pulls on it roughly to get her to land in his arms, and Lu puts both of her hands on his chest in order to keep her options open. You know, in case she might want to push him away a minute from now when he says something to fuck this up.  
  
“I hate you,” she says, petulant, and allows herself to glance at his lips.  
  
“Yeah well, you’re not exactly my favorite person either right now.”  
  
Lu gasps, all faux offense. What a liar he’s become — she’s absolutely his favorite person in the world. He doesn’t have many people. Then he’s kissing her, pulling on her clothes, and she likes make-up sex too much to deny him.  
  
She would hardly consider, “We still need to talk about this,” as the sort of sentiment that’s worth breaking away from a kiss for, but she just rolls her eyes and shushes him.  
  
“Later,” she breathes out, quiet and slow, and then she's kissing him again, holding onto his wrists and dragging him towards her bedroom.  
  
She doesn’t see him for almost two weeks after.   
  
—  
  
She isn’t sure who’s ignoring who.  
  
Lu is pissed at him at first, for not texting or calling. Neither of them mentioned ending things when they parted ways after what she has to admit was _great_ make-up sex, and it’s kind of out of left field, how he just doesn’t get in touch. But then she realizes that she has a phone too, that she just as easily could’ve called _him_ , so maybe they’re both being stubborn.  
  
She’ll be the bigger person for once.  
  
On the morning of April 11th, Lu does something reckless; she calls in sick to work, even though she’s the picture of health. She texts Guzmán, asks if he’s up yet, and isn’t surprised when she doesn’t get a reply. It’s only 9:00; he likes to sleep in on days when he doesn’t have class.  
  
On her way to his apartment, she stops by the French bakery he likes and picks up some pastries, and on a whim, she gets herself a strong cup of coffee as well. She’s going to need the energy.  
  
There’s no answer when she rings his doorbell with the fancy camera intercom system, and she waits a minute, then rings it again and has to fight the giggle that’s threatening to bubble up in her throat when she hears how sleepy he sounds.  
  
“What the fuck?”  
  
She doesn’t say anything, and he buzzes her up, so that definitely could have gone worse.  
  
Once she’s upstairs, he’s leaning against the doorframe, his hair a mess like he just woke up, and he clearly didn’t feel the need to bother with a shirt in the minute or two he had to prepare for her arrival.  
  
She pets his abs reassuringly and walks past him, not bothering with pleasantries.  
  
“Lu, what the hell is this,” he yells after her, and she hears the door close. “Is this an intervention?”  
  
When she gets to his kitchen, she reaches for a plate and carefully arranges the pastries she got on it. “You said you wanted to talk,” she yells towards him, then smirks when he finally steps into the room and glares at her.  
  
“I said that two weeks ago.”  
  
She doesn’t really mean to smile, but she does it anyway, motioning to his breakfast choices.  
  
“Happy birthday, darling.”

The irony isn’t lost on either of them.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me [on tumblr](http://cupcakeb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
